“Max,” she gasped, “you’re killing me.”

“Not yet.” He moved his lips to the inside of her thigh and shoved his hands beneath her behind. He lifted her to his gaze and simply looked at her. She didn’t think anyone without a doctor’s license had seen so much, and just when his up-close-and-personal scrutiny was beginning to embarrass Lola, he glanced up into her eyes and drew her to his lips. The immediate suction of his warm mouth stole her breath and she grasped the bedding in her fists.

He kissed between her thighs as he’d kissed the rest of her body, with passion and heat, drawing mindless sounds of pleasure from her throat and from his. She closed her eyes as feverish desire pulsed and beat just below her skin, out of control and curling her toes. Max might not know a lot about romance or relationships. He might not be quite as charming as he thought he was, but he knew a thing or two about how to please a woman.

He caressed her with his tongue, pressing into her slick flesh and drawing her into his mouth for a delicious kiss that nearly sent her over the edge. Repeatedly, he coaxed her to the point of orgasm, only to back off and place his open mouth on the inside of her thigh. Each time he took her higher, further, and just when she was about to come apart, he stopped.

When she opened her eyes, he was above her, reaching for his wallet on the bedside table. As if he’d had plenty of practice he tore open the condom and placed it over the head of his penis. He rolled it down the long shaft to the base, then he looked at her, fire and need and greed in his eyes, and she held up her arms for him. Placing one elbow by her shoulders, he kissed her mouth as he entered her body, plunging so fully, he pushed her up the bed. Again and again he delved into her, hard and deep, and she arched up to meet each thrust of his pumping hips. Her choppy breath matched his, over and over, until climax grabbed her in its hot grasp, and she couldn’t breathe at all. Wave after fiery wave rushed across her flesh as the walls of her body gripped and pulsed and tore a raw groan from the depths of his chest.

He cursed in Spanish and English and praised her in the same tortured breath. She clung to him, holding him close as he plunged into her one last time. He collapsed on top of her, and she held him to her. Held him to her heart, which seemed to beat just to love him.

Only after their breathing had returned to normal did Max pull out of her body and leave to use the adjoining bathroom. When he returned, a rectangle of light flooded through the open bathroom doorway and lit up the end of the bed. Max pulled back the quilt and she joined him beneath the sheets. They lay face-to-face and she ran her hand over his wide shoulders and chest. She’d never loved a man the way she loved Max. It felt as if all the love and happiness that had taken place in her life up to that moment had only been a prelude to this. She would not think about tomorrow. She would not ruin what they shared tonight by worrying about an uncertain future.

“Max? Did you mean it when you said you’re obsessed with me?”

He rolled onto his back and brought her with him. “Is this a trick question? Where if I say yes, you accuse me of being a sick bastard, but if I say no, you get hurt and offended?”

She laughed “No. I just always want us to be honest with each other.”

He lifted a brow. “How honest?”

“Completely.”

He pushed a curl of her hair behind her ear. “I’ve developed an obsession for the little throaty sounds you make when I’m loving you.”

“I make throaty sounds?”

“Yep, and I’ve a real fondness for the weight of your breasts in my hands.”

“Max?”

“Hmm?”

She wanted to ask him what he felt for her, not the throaty sounds and the weight of her breasts, but she didn’t have the nerve. She brushed her fingers across the thin gold disk nested in his black chest hair. It was beat-up and she couldn’t see the details very well. “What is this?”

“A St. Christopher. It was my father’s. He gave it to me when I was eighteen.”

“Why eighteen?”

He grinned. “He thought I needed protection from wild women.”

“I might not be Catholic, but I do know that St. Christopher is the patron saint of travel.” She gently tugged on his chest hair. “Not of boys who need protection from wild women.”

“Ouch. Jesus, I think you pulled some out.” He held up her hand in front of his face.

“Don’t change the subject. Why did your father give it to you when you were eighteen?”

He kissed her knuckles. “Besides the clothes on his back, when my father left Cuba, it was all he brought with him. He’d obviously arrived safely, so he considered it lucky. When I joined the Navy, he gave it to me.”

“And you’ve certainly been lucky.”

He laughed against the back of her hand and tiny lines appeared in the corners of his eyes. “Very lucky.”

“I’m not talking about that kind of luck.”

“I am. Do you know what it’s like for a guy like me to be here? With you?”

“No, but I know what it’s like for a girl like me to be here with you.”

“Not the same. You’re so beautiful, and you could-”

She placed her finger over Max’s lips. “I want you.” She placed her hand to the side of his face and looked into his eyes. She loved him so much, it hurt. It just kept swelling in her chest, getting bigger, until she could no longer hold it in. “I love you, Max,” she said on a rush of air.

He stilled and looked at her for a long moment before he very clearly said, “No, you don’t.”

Although she hadn’t known what she expected him to say, that wasn’t it. “I don’t?”

“No. You’re just caught up in the afterglow.”

Incredulous at his response, she raised onto one elbow and stared down at him. “What?”

“It happens after mind-numbing sex. When you’re spent and not thinking clearly.”

“Has it happened to you?”

“No.”

She sat up and held the sheet to her breasts. “Let me see if I have this straight.” She paused for a moment to get her thoughts together because she didn’t want to misunderstand him. Just in case he wasn’t saying what it sounded like he was saying. “You think I said I love you because I’m suffering some sort of mind-numbing afterglow from your superb lovemaking?”

He sat also and looked at her a bit warily, as if he feared she could go off on him at any second. “I think that might have something to do with it,” he said as if he’d been here before.

“Does this happen to you a lot?”

“What?”

“Women falling in love with you because… because…” She paused and pointed toward his middle. “Because you stun them with your wonder dick?” He was so delusional, and it was her curse that she loved him more than ever. It would be so much easier if she didn’t.

He hadn’t told her he loved her. Obsessed with her, yes. Loved her, no. Knowing how he truly felt angered her almost as much as it hurt. “You know,” she said, and threw the covers aside, “you’re extremely insulting. I tell you I love you, and you say I’m confused. Like I’m stupid and don’t know the difference between love and sex. I’m thirty years old; I know the difference, Max.” She moved to his closet and threw open the doors. She flipped on the light and told herself she wouldn’t cry. She felt raw and her chest ached, but to her vast relief, she discovered she was too angry to cry. And feeling extremely foolish for having blurted out her feelings.

“The least you can do is say thank you,” she continued as she rifled through his things. “That’s what I’ve always done when I’ve been in your situation. When someone makes a fool of himself and tells me he loves me and I don’t love him back.” She pulled a black silk robe from the hanger and threaded her arms through it. Lola had suffered a broken heart before, but never like this.

“And for your information,” she said as she turned around and tied the belt around her waist, “I fell in love with you before your performance here tonight. I fell in love with you for a lot of reasons that have nothing to do with sex.”

He was sitting up in bed with his elbows on his raised knees, holding his head in his hands. “I don’t think you’re stupid or a fool, Lola,” he said in a voice gone so low she almost didn’t hear him.

“Forget it.” She turned to the closed door of the bathroom. “Forget I said anything. I take it back.” Just as she pulled the door open, he was behind her, slamming it shut.

With one hand planted in front of her face, Max said next to her ear, “You can’t take it back now.”

“Yes, I can.”

“No.” He leaned his big body into her and shoved her up against the door. “I heard you.” His hot breath brushed her temple. “You love me, Lola. I won’t let you take it back. You can’t ever take it back.”

Something in his voice cooled her anger. A deep yearning. An unspoken plea. It was in the depths, if not his words. It was in the hand caressing her hip and sliding around to her stomach.

“Don’t leave.” He leaned his forehead against the door next to hers. “I’m a real bastard, I know, but don’t leave, Lola.”

“I wasn’t going anywhere. I was just going to get my suitcase.”

“Oh.” He eased away from her and she turned and looked up at him.

“Funny, though. When you thought I was leaving, you sure jumped off the bed fast.”

“Charley horse.”

“Sure. I think you care about me more than you want to admit. I think it scares the heck out of you. I know it scares the heck out of me.”

“What scares you?”

She looked into his eyes and said, “That I have fallen in love with you, and there is no future for us. That you burst into my life suddenly only a short time ago. That it’s too fast, too soon, and you will leave the same way you came into my life. I’ll turn around one day and you’ll be gone.”